Bridge Data Centres Names Bain Capital Senior Partner Drew Chen as Co-CEO

Bridge Data Centres has appointed Bain Capital senior partner Drew Chen as co-chief executive, effective 1 November. Other notable moves include Brookfield hiring former M&G Japan head Manabu Fujita, and Equinix naming Effendi Azmi Hashim as managing director for Malaysia.

Bain-backed data centre company Bridge Data Centres has named Bain Capital senior partner Drew Chen as co-chief executive, effective 1 November, according to a press release by the company. Chen, a founding member of Bain's Asia Pacific private equity team and formerly a consultant at Bain & Company, will share the role with Eric Fan, who had been chief executive. Bain Capital's Jonathan Zhu said Chen played a pivotal role in building Bridge and its sister company ChinData.

Former M&G Investments Japan head Manabu Fujita has joined Brookfield Asset Management as managing director and head of its global client group for Japan, according to Bloomberg. Fujita will expand the alternative asset manager's institutional client base in Japan and oversee Japanese client relationships for credit manager Oaktree Capital Management, which Brookfield has fully acquired. He ran M&G's Japanese business from mid-2023 after 15 years at Schroders, where he rose to head of sales, and earlier worked at Invesco and Nippon Life.

Effendi Azmi Hashim has joined Nasdaq-listed data centre operator Equinix as managing director for Malaysia this month, according to a press release by the company. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Effendi spent three years as managing director for Malaysia and Indonesia at IT infrastructure services company Kyndryl, after almost 10 years as country manager and general manager at technology services company Cognizant. He succeeds Cheam Tat Inn, who is retiring from full-time operational leadership after leading Equinix in Malaysia since November 2023.

Kouhei Ohno has joined data centre operator Digital Realty and will serve on secondment as chief operating officer of its Japanese joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation, MC Digital Realty, according to a LinkedIn post by Digital Realty's Asia Pacific head Serene Nah. Ohno spent 28 years at Japanese telecoms group KDDI, where he was a general manager, and served as deputy managing director of Telehouse Europe from 2017 to 2021. Nah said Christopher Han, who has been chief operating officer of MC Digital Realty, will move to Seoul as general manager for South Korea.

Omar Slim will become head of Japan for MetLife Investment Management, the institutional asset manager of insurer MetLife, effective 1 December, according to a press release by the firm. Slim, who has moved from Singapore to Tokyo, remains co-head of Asia public fixed income and will become a representative director of the firm's Japanese entities. He joined the firm through its acquisition of PineBridge Investments, where he co-headed Asia fixed income and was chief executive of the Singapore business, after earlier roles at State Street Global Advisors and BNP Paribas.

Lazard director Joyce Lo has become managing director and co-chief operating officer of APAC advisory at Lazard CL, the private capital advisory business Lazard launched this month after completing its acquisition of Campbell Lutyens, according to a LinkedIn post. Based in Singapore, Lo has covered real estate and infrastructure as Lazard's Asia Pacific real assets specialist since 2019. She previously worked in business development at Hong Kong-based real estate investment manager LimeTree Capital Partners.

Logistics real estate manager ESR has appointed Roy Teo, chief executive of Singapore's SB Asset & Investment Management, as head of Southeast Asia from January, according to a press release by the company. Teo replaces Jai Mirpuri, who is moving to Frasers Property Industrial. Based in Singapore, he will oversee development, asset management and property management. Darren Webb has stepped down as chief executive of Singapore-based data centre developer Evolution Data Centres, which he co-founded in 2021, according to a LinkedIn post last week. Webb said he is leaving the business entirely.